The Hanover Conferences and the Emergence of the âPersonality and Cultureâ Perspective

Abstract

"Personality and Culture" was an influential movement in interwar American social science that shaped the development of emerging disciplines in the US academy, particularly Boasian ethnology. The movement's origins trace back to a series of interdisciplinary conferences organized by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) in Hanover, New Hampshire, between 1926 and 1930. These "Hanover Conferences" were among the SSRC's first major Rockefeller-funded initiatives aimed at establishing an interdisciplinary research agenda in the social sciences, bringing together scholars from social science, psychology, and psychiatry. My archival research at the Rockefeller Archive Center examines the role of these gatherings in shaping social science research agendas. Specifically, I analyze how anthropologists positioned their discipline within these emerging frameworks of interdisciplinary collaboration. This research report focuses on the speeches delivered by three prominent anthropologists—Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942), Clark Wissler (1870-1947), and Edward Sapir (1884-1939)—during the 1926 Hanover Conference, along with the ensuing discussions. Wissler, Malinowski, and Sapir were key figures in early 20th-century anthropology and the social sciences, but they came from distinct intellectual traditions, each offering a unique perspective on anthropology's disciplinary contributions to social science and its potential for interdisciplinary collaboration. The perspectives they presented in the 1926 Hanover Conference not only showcased their individual differences as influential anthropologists with distinct visions to shape their field's evolution but also reflected the broader methodological debates within anthropology and the social sciences during the early 20th century